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Monday, December 31, 2012

when we moved into our house a little over a year ago, i loved everything BUT the kitchen. i have no idea why someone would choose to make the cabinets so dark when the rest of the house has an enormous amount of white crown molding. my guess is that they must have had extra supplies and wanted to use them in the kitchen. when i first brought up to josh that i wanted to eventually paint the cabinets white, he wasn't sure about it. after about a year i finally convinced him it would look better, and better yet - i would do it all by myself! i wasn't sure how i was going to do it, especially if it meant sanding everything down (no thanks, i'll stick to the ugly brown cabinets), BUT one of my college friends Jess, told me about Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations (she is planning on doing it too)! I read reviews and looked and pictures and everyone seemed to really like the result. best part? no sanding! and the kit is only $80!

IMPORTANT NOTE: all of the extra issues i had is probably all that could go wrong, so you might have no or less problems. also, i did this all by myself while on my holiday break (while josh was working 10+ hour days) - some were able to get this project completed in a weekend versus it taking me 3.5 days

here are a few "before" pictures"

Part 1: Deglossing

so this part wasn't so bad, the kit comes with the "deglosser" and a couple of scrub pads. i had started this project at about 4pm on day 1 and i finished by about 8 or 9 that night.

(btw: deglossing is in lieu of having to sand down your cabinents)

living with doors on the floor and a kitchen in chaos is NOT fun

Part 2: Bond Coats

so this wasn't so bad, until i realized i actually needed THREE coats of paint (the instructions claimed that you only need two, but i guess my cabinets were too dark to go so light). ALSO three coats meant that i would need to purchase ANOTHER kit. so now my $80 kit has quickly turned into a $160 project. in hindsight, if i would have known that was going to happen i would have done a primer to save money and frustration! all in all this took days 2 and 3.

step 3: top coat

so this part was probably the most frustrating. i was almost done with the project and from most of the reviews, it was supposed to be the easy part. ya. right. so, just in case, anything went wrong (i had a gut feeling) i painted the backs of a couple of doors with the top coat. and THIS happened.

it started to turn parts of the cabinet doors orange/pink. lets just say i am very upset at this point. so i google the issue and apparently this and "bubbling" tend to happen with the top coat that comes in the kit. so the solution is to get minwax polycrylic (water-based) top coat protective finish

so add in about $30 (new paint brush and top coat) and now the $80 kit has turned into almost $200.

good news though is that it didn't cause the coloring anymore. but again, i believe if i would have done a primer i would not have had any issues. also, PLEASE make sure you let this dry for about 4-6 hours (can only says 2) you wouldn't want to mess anything up and so much hard work!

step 4: painting hardware

so technically this isn't part of the kit, but since i had to spend 2x what the kit cost, i could no longer go and buy new hinges (the old ones were a brownish gold and i wanted brushed nickel to match the knobs i already had). SO, like any DIY person - i decided to paint them! i looked up reviews online and went with

rustoleum satin nickel (not gonna like, was kinda mad to give rustoleum every more business). i think the paint was only about $7 - so not so bad versus spending about $125 on new hardware.

to clean the old hardware i sprayed them with some kitchen cleaner and scrubbed them with a toothbrush and then rinsed them off and let dry.

result: i wouldn't go as far to say that it looks like satin nickel, but for $7? i'll take it1

oh, and another tip, don't let one of your doors hide somewhere and only come to find it when you have put your kitchen back together.

final result!

i was SO glad for this project to be over with. would i do it again? yes, but only if i would have done a primer first. and yes, i LOVE it!

before and after pic:

my favorite part (besides the new kitchen)?

my new owl cookie jar that i received as a christmas present from natalie! :)

problem is, i love this lamp, but not enough to pay almost $400 for two of them. i looked everywhere for a cheaper version, but with no luck. :( but then it dawned on me after looking through multiple pins on pinterest, that if i could find an empty based glass lamp that i liked, that i could just paint the inside!

pinterest ftw!

below is my DIY on how to achieve the same thing

(added plus is you can customize to any color)

i ended up liking a glass lamp from ikea (which you can find here) called JONSBRO for about $40 + matching shade of $10 = $50. I had already had some paint in the color I wanted from back in the day that i used on some diy wedding crafts, but i did get them from Hobby Lobby for about $4 each.

all i did was use 4 parts of the teal paint and 1 part of the white paint mixed together

(it was a little too teal without the white added to soften/lighten the color)

then i got a standard paint brush and started painting the insides of the lamp. i had to paint over a few spots since it doesn't evenly cover the first time around. also, the good thing about the packaging is that when you are done and ready to let it dry, you can put the lamp in the box upside down to dry.

i will say it does take about 6 hours to dry, but afterwards, it looks just as good as it if you bought it off the shelf! (unfortunately, i don't have a final pic of it with the lamp shade since a part was missing and i am currently waiting for the replacement in the mail from ikea)

so for a total of about $100 ($50 per lamp) i was able to get exactly what i wanted for a 1/4 of the price!

now on to my mantel project:

so i am pretty much obsessed with chevron (especially grey) and love this inspiration photo from pinterest

since it was just a chevron print and nothing too complicated i decided on would paint the chevron canvas instead of trying to find/buy one. it actually ended up being way more geometric than i expected, but i do advise to not do it by eyeing it, as after you sketch out the lines (while time consuming) pays off in the end

i got a 24" x 36" (that was the biggest the would fit) from michaels, i think it was about $35 dollars but had a 40% off coupon so it was only about $22!

again, i already had some white and grey paint from previous paint projects (but it should only cost you about $6-8 for both paints. also, i lighted up the grey a little with white paint since the grey i had was a little too dark.

to do the lines, i just took a piece of cardboard i had and made a right angle with it and started to trace the lines with a pencil, i didn't want the chevron too big or too small so i made the angles to where i had about 4 points going across the top. then, i decided where the bottom points would end and then drew a straight line all the way across the bottom. i did that so that i knew where to start the next set of zig-zag lines and also to make sure each line was the same width all the way down. i just kept going until i got to the bottom. and then filled it in with the paint!

Saturday, August 11, 2012

so i've come to the conclusion, that the reason why i don't blog more frequently, is because the things i want to blog about have to be kept secret until the event arises. case in point: almost everything i'm going to show, were each surprises-in-waiting. so now that everything has come and gone, i am now able to share.

thank goodness for photoshop :)

stacey's nursery and shower:

our dear friends, the cooks, are expecting their first child, a baby girl. stacey had originally contacted me wanting me to make their baby's name to go above the crib. once i was in the nursery, she decided that she wanted me to help her design some prints as well.

can't wait to share what the final product (nursery) will be once baby cook comes!

and of course with a nursery comes a baby shower. all of the hosts divided up the parts of the shower and i was assigned desserts and "baby advice". i had also seen these super cute onesies on ontobaby.com and thought i'd give a little DIY a try.

below is what the onesies looked like and further down you can see what each month's ombre color was

girls weekend:

a few weekends ago, my college girlfriends (plus a few others) all got together for a girl's weekend in galveston. i had originally wanted to make t-shirts for the trip. but of course i got a little carried away.

welcome bags:

inside the welcome bags:

girls weekend t-shirts

girls weekend "shades" game

(pardon the language :) )

"i like big beaches..." beach bag

mustache koozies

mason jar sippy cups

other fun designs:

one of my best friends, natalie, is getting married in cabo next year, literally three days shy from josh and i's anniversary and not even a mile away from where we got married. as a crafty friend with cabo wedding experience, i offered to design the logo that went on their save-the-dates beach ball.

so freakin cute btw!

while this wasn't my craft, josh and i sure enjoyed the craft moonshine that natalie's dad sent our way. it was an applejack cider moonshine. let's just say i'm glad there was only one jar because this was was gone in a few hours.

a while ago, i posted some inspiration and some lyric art that i created for the entry way. finally, months later it is completed! :)

leaving you with some humor of a little bit of photoshop i did for girls weekend :)

Friday, June 15, 2012

i can't tell you why exactly, but i've recently turned into quite the bookworm. just ask the husband who is in desperate need of attention located to the left of me, who if he was brave enough, would hide my kindle, iphone, and ipad.

when i very first saw the trailer for the hunger games i wanted to see it. but for some strange reason i wanted to read the book first. the reason i say strange reason is because the last time i read a novel was about two years ago when my friend terri gave me a book for christmas.

well about two weeks later i finished the hunger games

(ps, the movie is horrible if you have read the book)

while i was finishing up the mockingjay in cabo, all of the girls on the trip were having a conversation about good book series (we were all reading) and ashley brought up fifty shades. and yes, this was literally a week before it blew up everywhere: facebook, pinterest, instragram.

no, i am not going to review it.

yes, you know exactly what kind of content is in this book.

all, i can say is that once i started i literally spent the entire weekend after getting back from cabo stuck to my iphone/kindle and doing nothing else but reading.

so good as in, if i have two minutes to read while josh looks through his menu at dinner...

i am reading ;)

so now you've read fifty shades and the hunger games, now what?

how about a book like combines the action of the hunger games and the 'love' story of grey?

then my friends, i bring to you

the fever series

this is probably my favorite out of all three that i have read.

and i am pretty sure that (relatively) i read them the fastest (which was about a week)

loved this book - all 2000 pages of it.

so what's it about? if i tell you, you probably won't read it.
ok fine.
its about "faerys" and not the kind with wings that you have to clap three times for.
(in fact, the exact opposite)
just trust me and read it.

since each series i have read has been better than the last - there is a certain point of hesitancy toward any new book you try, certain that there is no way it can be better than the last.

so, i googled and googled book reviews that had the three above in their top ten list.

and apparently the black dagger brotherhood series topped almost all of them.

ok, sure... i guess i'll start a new series with EIGHT books. holy crap.and really? why do they have to make the covers look so vampire pornish? kindle it is.

so far i am about 80% of the way into the first book and it definitely doesn't grab at you like the first three series that i read did. maybe its just me but, while faerys, post-apocalypse revolting adolescents, and bdsm didn't necessarily through me through the loop on the "non-realistic" stuff...

for some reason vampires do.

don't get me wrong its ended up being a pretty good book so far, but whether or not you want to invest the time/money into eight books...